1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic transmission operating lever of an automobile or the like, particularly to an automatic transmission operating lever equipped with a knob having a switch.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a four-speed automatic transmission has been becoming wide spread in place of the conventional three-speed automatic transmission as an automatic transmission for an automobile or the like. An overdrive gear (fourth-speed gear) is provided in the four-speed automatic transmission, to improve fuel consumption of an automobile cruising at high speed or with a light load. A shift to the overdrive gear is performed by pushing an overdrive switch (O/D switch) provided on an operating knob of the automatic transmission operating lever.
In a conventional automatic transmission operating lever, the O/D switch is connected to a lead wire (conducting wire), which extends from the lower end of the operating knob and is soldered to a wire harness at the exposed end thereof, and the wire harness is connected to the control device of the automatic transmission.
Since soldering the wire harness to the lead wire has been necessary, the number of assembly steps has increased, resulting in high costs.